August 1st.
Yesterday we were all day at Rumpenheim: so kindly received! The Landgrave, his two brothers, Frederic and George, the Dowager Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her daughter Duchess Caroline, Aunt Cambridge, Mary, Augusta, and Adolphus; Fritz and Anna of Hesse and good Princess Louise, kindness itself. Aunt Cambridge was very amiable, and spoke most tenderly of you. To-morrow morning Louis goes to Oberhessen, where I join him in two days. I go to see Uncle Alexander at Jugenheim; go on Monday to Friedberg, where there is an asylum for blind people, of which I am Protectorin [Patroness]. I go to see it, and sleep at the Castle. The next day I stop on my road to see Marburg, and shall be in the evening at Alsfeld, where I find Louis. The next day I go on to Herr von Riedesel at Altenburg, where I breakfast, and I dine and spend the night with another Riedesel family at Eisenbach. Louis joins me that evening. The next day we go on though the country, as the people are anxious to see us, and the country is very beautiful. On Thursday and Friday we shall be at Giessen, on Saturday at home.
Giessen, August 7th.
I am very hot and tired; we have only just reached this place, and have to go out almost immediately to see the animals and machines.
Our journey has been most prosperous, but rather tiring, and the heat quite fearful. We were most kindly received everywhere. English, Hessian, German flags everywhere, and Gesangvereine of an evening.
Last night we slept at Schotten, and posted from thence to-day through a lovely, rich, wooded, and mountainous district, the Vogelsberg.
We have had but one room everywhere, and have remained only long enough at a place to see it, so that writing has been impossible. To-morrow evening we return to Kranichstein, and then I will write to you an account of every thing. Here, with no time, and with such heat and noise, it is impossible.
Kranichstein, August 9th.
* * * We went, when I last wrote to you at Giessen, to see the different machines at work, in a crowd close round us and a smothering heat. It was interesting, though, in spite of all. The people cheered and were very civil. That day, at the meeting of the agriculturists, Count Laubach told me dear Papa’s book lay on the table, and is of the greatest use and interest. I am so pleased to have been the first in Germany to make known something of Papa’s knowledge in this science, one of the many in which dear Papa excelled. The people are so grateful to you for having sent it. In the evening the president and some other scientific gentlemen came to tea with us. I was so glad to see how pleased the people were at the interest Louis takes in these things. A procession was really very pretty; large carts, decorated with the different agricultural emblems, peasants in their different costumes—it was something quite new to me.
At Marburg, I saw in the beautiful church the grave of St. Elizabeth, the castle where she lived, and many other things which Kingsley mentions in his “Saint’s Tragedy.”